Date of Award

5-13-2021

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Calvin Thomas

Second Advisor

Randy Malamud

Third Advisor

Diana Anselmo Sequeria

Abstract

This thesis draws on recent scholarship and criticism within speculative fiction in order to present a contemporary definition of the notoriously elusive weird fiction and investigates the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of the weird as they ooze or seep beyond the confines of a purely literary existence. In doing so, the thesis also investigates how the weird absorbs and visually represents political and social issues and ideologies such as racism, post-humanism and climate change while also unearthing conflicts of identity, coherency and generic instability, within the mode. It first accomplishes this by revisiting the works of H.P. Lovecraft in order to assess their ideological implications, then moves through literature and film, to expand the historically binary relationship between literature and film or television as it is mediated through the speculative fiction mode and replace it with a spectrum or continuity of artistic and philosophical expression befitting our contemporary medium-ambivalent culture.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/22684079

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